Woe to Us

Gospel: Luke 10: 13-16

It is an odd Christianity that claims to believe in mercy while insisting on the perpetuation of an unjust death penalty system.  It is a perverse religion that claims biblical belief while maligning and exploiting immigrants, refugees, and migrants.  It is an abomination before God to claim the name of Christian while deriding and depriving the poor and marginalized of access to health care, shelter, and food - all things the Lord Jesus provided to people without question or qualification.

The woes that Jesus speaks to his generation are woes that echo through the ages to every time and place.  Those woes were uttered to those who claimed the name of God's chosen people in a religious community that appealed to tradition as its defense of its practices.  Those same woes now echo in our time to a religion claiming to be God's people and who appeal to their traditions in order to continue these atrocities in our own time.  

If we observe the decline of religion - the shuttering of church buildings and the waning attendance at services - and we do not at all look at the utter incongruence of our actions compared to those of the Lord Jesus, then woe to us.  We who fail to repent of our sins, who seek blame upon the various scapegoats we create to deflect blame from ourselves - woe to us.  We who cast statuary to the ideologues of our day in defense of our culture of death - woe to us.